


Brothers

by chickenmuffinsoup55555



Series: baby talon dick au [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Dick Grayson is a Talon, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, jason is big brober, they all need hugs that's for sure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28536411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickenmuffinsoup55555/pseuds/chickenmuffinsoup55555
Summary: It was strange, Jason decided, being twice the size of his older brother.  He was exactly as Jason remembered him—except, of course, the glowing yellow eyes and blue veins that criss-crossed tan skin unnaturally paled.  But it was him, impossibly, miraculously.Or, part 2 of the baby talon dick au
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Series: baby talon dick au [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090475
Comments: 7
Kudos: 143





	Brothers

**Author's Note:**

> aha posted this on the old tumblr a while ago, finally getting around to crossposting it here too!

It was strange, Jason decided, being twice the size of his older brother. He was exactly as Jason remembered him—except, of course, the glowing yellow eyes and blue veins that criss-crossed tan skin unnaturally paled. But it was him, impossibly, miraculously. And he was, perhaps more impossibly, still himself. He still flitted around any given space like an acrobat—Alfred had caught him up on the chandelier three times already. He still laughed riotously at the dumbest jokes, still rambled on and on about whatever he was currently passionate about. 

It was only little changes now. Now, Dick couldn’t stand to be cold, wrapping himself up in every blanket he could find to prepare for every night. Now, his speech was stilted, and there were still moments he’d forget himself, and call himself ‘Talon.’ And before, Jason really didn’t remember Dick doing what he was told quite so often.

That, and he hadn’t so much as touched a single person other than Jason. He kept painful distance between himself and everyone, stiffening the slightest bit when someone—even Alfred or Bruce—got too close. He remembered them, that much was clear, but his memory was spotty, and they’d been beginning to suspect it might’ve been tampered with. But with Jason, it was different. With Jason, Dick was his usual tactile self. He leaped off the banister into Jason’s arms, he climbed around onto his shoulders, he even held Jason’s hand sometimes. It had weirded Jason out at first, but he’d gotten used to it quickly. Truth be told, Jason himself was a tactile person, it had just been so long since he’d allowed himself such easy contact with another person.

Speak of the devil, Jason felt a light weight slam into his back and wrap tiny, undersized eleven year old arms around his neck. 

“Jaybird!” Dick exclaimed, clinging to his back like a spider-monkey.

“Watcha doin’ there, buddy?” Jason asked, pausing from the sandwich he was making. Another strange thing: apparently now he talked to Dick as if he were a child. Dick  _ was  _ a child, but he was still technically Jason’s older brother, and that was still a trip.

Dick hooked his chin over Jason’s shoulder. “I dunno. Do you wanna play a game?”

“Sure, kiddo,” Jason said. He didn’t call Damian “buddy” or “kiddo,” despite Dick and Damian being the same age. Technically. “Just give me a second to eat this.”

“One Mississippi! Your second’s over, let’s go!” Dick tugged on Jason’s neck, trying to get him to start moving.

“Asshole,” Jason laughed. Dick didn’t stop tugging as Jason shoved his sandwich in his mouth. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he said, mouth full. He carried Dick into the living room, where Dick jumped off of his back and went running to the cabinet under the tv that they kept all their boardgames in. In finding what he wanted, Dick pulled every single other game out of the cabinet as he went, tossing them beside him carelessly.

“ _ Tt. _ I hope you’re planning on putting that back.” Jason almost ( _ almost _ ) jumped. He hadn’t noticed Damian, buried in an armchair with a sketchbook in his hand. 

Dick didn’t even look up, and Jason suspected he’d clocked Damian immediately. “Do you want to play, Dami?” he asked, now with a deck of ratty old Batman cards in hand.

Damian glanced imperiously down at where Dick was kneeling on the floor. “Play what?”

“Go Fish!”

“Go…what?”

Dick was scandalized. “You don’t know what Go Fish is?” At Damian’s continued confusion, he turned to Jason. “He doesn’t know what Go Fish is?”

“Don’t look at me,” Jason said, shoving aside some games to make room for him to sit, perfectly aware Dick would not be putting them away anytime soon. “He came like that.”

Dick pursed his lips and looked at Damian. Since Dick had come home (after nearly killing Damian, Jason should probably add), Jason honestly couldn’t tell if he and Damian were best friends, or if they hated each other.

Damian glared at Jason. “Whatever the game is, I’m sure I can beat  _ you _ , Todd.”

“It’s a luck game, Damian.”

“No it’s not!” Dick exclaimed. “It’s skill!”

“Sure it is, buddy,” Jason said. He and Dick, back when they were both kids, would play an inordinate amount of card games. They definitely played Go Fish the most (funnily enough, Dick did win most often, which Jason supposed would lend credence to his idea that it was about ‘skill’), but they’d generally played a lot of different card games. Jason had come to find Dick couldn’t remember how to play anything but Go Fish. “Damian, are you playing or not?”

Damian slunk down from the chair, closing his notebook as he went. “I’ll play, only so I can beat you.”

Jason rolled his eyes, and decided to pick his battles carefully.

“Yay! I’ll explain how.” Explaining Go Fish was more of a joint-effort. As Dick fumbled with the cards he was attempted to shuffle (which was so unlike his usual grace), he attempted to explain, only he frequently lost track of what he was saying, and Jason had to jump in. It was...a little concerning, to Jason, and it confirmed his suspicion that most of Dick’s ability to do things like play Go Fish relied on muscle memory. Once he was required to think it though and explain it to someone else, he faltered.

“Go Fish!” Damian declared smugly, towards the end of their second round. He had one card in his hand, and was taking far too much pleasure in repeatedly saying “Go Fish!” when anybody asked for a card.

Jason sighed and grabbed a card from the pile. “Oh,” he said. “I’m out.” He laid down his new pair of eights along with his other pairs. Damian leaned over and Jason had to hold back a laugh to see him counting under his breath. “And I win,” he said with a smirk, knowing Damian had just come to the same conclusion.

Damian scowled. “You probably cheated.”

Dick giggled, dropping his ten remaining cards, none of which were matches. “Jay always cheats.”

“I played this one fair and square. Like I play every game of Go Fish.”

“Whatever,” Damian said. 

Jason had absolutely no reason to antagonize Damian. So, naturally, that was exactly what he did. “Don’t be upset you lost to  _ ‘the superior Robin _ .’”

“Tt. You are  _ not  _ the superior Robin. Only Robins that manage to stay  _ alive  _ can be superior.”

Jason happened to glance back at Dick to see the playful smile drop off his face. Jason’s retort died on his tongue.

“What?” He looked between Damian and Jason, eyes wide.

“Nothing,” Jason said, kicking Damian lightly to try and give him the message.

Damian kicked him back, much harder. “Did Todd not tell you? He managed to get himself killed.”

Dick was staring at Jason now like he’d never seen him before. “What do you mean?” he asked, with a kind of dawning horror.

“Todd got tricked by the Joker and ended up exploding,” Damian said blithely. 

“Damian, shut the hell up,” Jason said. Could the kid  _ really  _ not pick up on the mood, or was he, as always, being purposefully belligerent?

“He came back, eventually, but he’s the only one of us dumb enough to die  _ for real _ .”

Dick stood suddenly. Damian seemed surprised by the motion.

“Dick-” Jason began, but Dick took off running. Jason glared at Damian. “What the fuck did you say that for?”

Damian blinked quickly, trying to wipe the bewildered expression off his face. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You know what you did,” he said, although in reality, he wasn’t sure that Damian did. He stood up now too, and cast Damian one last angry look before leaving the room. He jogged up the stairs, and stopped on the second floor instead of the third. The third floor was where Dick’s current room was. It was situated between Alfred’s and Bruce’s, with everyone else across the hall or not much further. That wasn’t where Dick went. Dick would have gone to the second floor, to his old room. His old room was a mausoleum, completely untouched and exactly the same as Dick had left it. After Dick’s “death,” no one could stand to look at it, but no one could bear to change it. So everyone simply relocated to the third floor, leaving a messy eleven year old’s room like some kind of memorial no one had the heart to visit.

Jason stepped into the darkened room to the sound of sobbing. Something tight in Jason’s chest tugged him over to the bed, and when he sat on the edge of it, Dick’s breathing hitched and his sobbing stopped suddenly. He hadn’t moved, his face was still buried in the pillow he was gripping.

“Hey buddy,” Jason said. Dick didn’t respond. Jason couldn’t remember if Dick liked to be comforted when he cried, or if he would want to be left alone. There were so many things he didn’t realized he’d forgotten about his brother, so many details the years had washed from his mind. “Are you okay?” he asked, and hoped his voice didn’t betray just how lost he felt.

Dick shook his head, not looking up from the pillow. For lack of anything to say, Jason slowly reached out a hand to place on Dick’s shoulder. When he first made contact, Dick stiffened, just for a moment, before he relaxed and suddenly he was crying again. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Jason said desperately. That wasn’t the affect he’d wanted. “Is this about what Damian said? Because I’m fine. We’re all fine now.”

Dick clutched the pillow tighter and if anything, sobbed harder.

“Dick, please, I’m okay-”

“No!” Dick exclaimed, shoving himself upright violently. His golden yellow eyes gleamed unnaturally in the low light, glistening with shedding tears. “No, it’s not okay,  _ you’re  _ not okay!”

“Dick…”

“I was meant to protect you. I was meant to keep you safe. I was  _ meant  _ to! And you—you died, for  _ real _ .”

“I’m better now,” Jason tried.

“You died. And—and I know you died in  _ my  _ colors. You died in  _ my  _ colors with  _ my  _ name and I couldn’t keep you safe.”

Jason tried to swallow down the pit in his stomach. He  _ did  _ die as Robin, but it wasn’t Dick’s fault. It was Bruce’s fault, it was the Joker’s fault, it was  _ Jason’s  _ fault, not Dick’s. “It wasn’t-”

“ _ Now  _ I get it.” Tears started streaming down his face again, but this time, they were silent. “Why you’re so different. Why you’re not the same anymore, why you’re angry all the time. You’re not my little brother.”

Jason stared, dumbly, mouth open, unable to formulate a response. He wanted to say  _ yes, yes I am, I’m still Jason, I’m still your little brother _ , but that wasn’t true? Was it? He wasn’t the same person anymore, and he certainly wasn’t Dick’s little brother. They couldn’t be who they were before. Time and circumstance irrevocably changed that, for both of them.

Dick’s breath hitched again, and he barely choked out his next words. “My little brother died, and I didn’t save him.”

There was nothing left to say. Jason didn’t know which of them moved first, but the next moment Dick was sobbing into his shoulder and Jason had his arms wrapped around him. He felt his shoulder getting wet from Dick’s tears and felt his own eyes start to water. It felt like finally admitted the truth he hadn’t wanted to face: their roles were reversed. Jason’s older brother may have miraculously come home, but Jason had grown up. It was time to face the truth, and stop running from his responsibilities. He was the oldest now, with the specter of Dick lifted (more or less) from the house. His younger siblings, Dick included, were his to take care of now, and it was time to do a better job of it.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I think I finally figured out how to link my tumblr, so check it out if you want!  
> [Tumblr](https://chickenmuffinsoup.tumblr.com)


End file.
